Hearing set for officer challenging eligibility

Lt. Col. Terry Lakin is the highest-ranking active-duty officer to refuse to obey orders based on President Obama’s eligibility.

The U.S. Army has confirmed June 11 for an Article 32 hearing for a physician who is refusing to obey orders until Barack Obama provides documentation of his eligibility to be commander-in-chief of the nation’s military.

The announcement comes today from the American Patriot Foundation, which operates the Safeguard Our Constitution website which is generating support for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin.

The organization said Lakin has refused to deploy to Afghanistan again, “because the president refuses – even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary – to prove his eligibility under the Constitution to hold office.”

The hearing is scheduled at 9 a.m. in Room 134 of Building T-2 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

The organization said all proceedings are open to the media and public.

The Constitution requires a president to be a “natural born citizen,” and while the term is not defined in the Constitution, many legal analysts believe at the time it was written it meant a person born in the U.S. of two U.S. citizen parents. Obama clearly does not qualify under that definition, since he has admitted his father never was a U.S. citizen. Some legal challenges have argued he wasn’t even born in Hawaii.

Lakin publicly had asked the president to document his eligibility and expressed a willingness to deploy with the 32nd Cavalry Regiment to Afghanistan. But he received no response from the White House.

The filing of charges, however, may be part of the still-unrevealed strategy Lakin and his legal counselors are pursuing.

Formally, Lakin is accused of “through design” missing “the movement of US Airways Flight Number 1123, departing from Baltimore/Washington International Airport arriving in Charlotte, North Carolina, in order to deploy for a Temporary Change of Station in support of Operation Enduring Freedom with the 32nd Calvary (sic) Regiment, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with which he was required in the course of duty to move.”

The second charge accuses Lakin of failing to report “to the office of his Brigade Commander, Colonel Gordon R. Roberts, at 1345 hours, or words to that effect, an order which it was his duty to obey.”

The SafeguardOurConstitution website explained the first charge, “missing movement,” is a serious crime in the nature of a felony. The second is “disobeying a direct order” and includes four specifications.

“Any soldier convicted on all charges and specifications would expect to be sentenced to years at ‘hard labor’ in the penitentiary,” the site said.

The charges against Lt. Col. Terry Lakin, the highest-ranking and first active-duty officer to refuse to obey orders based on President Obama’s eligibility.

Jensen, in an earlier interview on the G. Gordon Liddy radio program, gave hints as to what he expects.

“In the (Uniform Code of Military Justice), just as you would expect, criminal defendants have the process of the court, for subpoenas and depositions under the rules that are prescribed,” Jensen said.

Lakin had posted a YouTube video inviting his own court-martial because he believes military orders under an ineligible president are illegal. He then posted a letter telling Obama it’s up to him to provide the proof.

“I’m not going to say what we are going to do other than we are going to do what you would want us to do,” Jensen said on the Liddy program.

“Every criminal defendant has to be allowed the benefit of doubt to discover information relevant or which may even lead to the discovery of relevant information that could support his case,” he said.

“It would be shocking to me that a defendant … would not be permitted to discover information that would lend itself to proving his [case],” he said.

The discovery issue previously was raised in court by attorney John Hemenway, who was threatened by a federal judge with sanctions for bringing a court challenge to Obama’s presidency.

Hemenway is serving in emeritus status with the Safeguard Our Constitution website. He brought the previous court challenge on behalf of a retired military officer, Gregory S. Hollister, who questioned Obama’s eligibility.

Robertson sarcastically wrote: “The plaintiff says that he is a retired Air Force colonel who continues to owe fealty to his commander in chief (because he might possibly be recalled to duty) and who is tortured by uncertainty as to whether he would have to obey orders from Barack Obama because it has not been proven – to the colonel’s satisfaction – that Mr. Obama is a native-born American citizen, qualified under the Constitution to be president.

“The issue of the president’s citizenship was raised, vetted, blogged, texted, twittered, and otherwise massaged by America’s vigilant citizenry during Mr. Obama’s two-year campaign for the presidency, but this plaintiff wants it resolved by a court,” Robertson wrote.

Hemenway warned at the time, “If the court persists in pressing Rule 11 procedures against Hemenway, then Hemenway should be allowed all of the discovery pertinent to the procedures as court precedents have permitted in the past.

“The court has referred to a number of facts outside of the record of this particular case and, therefore, the undersigned is particularly entitled to a hearing to get the truth of those matters into the record. This may require the court to authorize some discovery,” Hemenway said.

The comments followed the case of a reservist who challenged the legality of his deployment orders under Obama. The orders later were canceled by the government.

“Rather than contesting the suit,” Day wrote, “the Army took the highly peculiar step of revoking the major’s deployment order, suggesting that the Pentagon generals are not entirely confident that they can demonstrate the legitimacy of their purported commander in chief.”

Obama’s actual response to those who question his eligibility to be president under the Constitution’s requirement that the U.S. president be a “natural born citizen” has been to dispatch both private and tax-funded attorneys to prevent anyone from gaining access to his documentation.

The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”

WND has covered a multitude of challenges and lawsuits over the issue. Some have alleged that he was not born in Hawaii in 1961 as he has written, or that the framers of the Constitution specifically excluded dual citizens – Obama’s father was a subject of the British crown at Obama’s birth – from being eligible for the office.

Lakin earlier released a copy of a letter he sent to Obama saying, “The burden of proof must rest with you.”

Lakin originally announced his position with a video stating he would not follow orders because he was not sure of their legality under Obama, who has concealed personal information that could confirm he meets the constitutional requirement that a president be a “natural born citizen.”

Besides Obama’s actual birth documentation, the still-concealed documentation for him includes kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

“Where’s The Birth Certificate?” billboard helps light up the night at the Mandalay Bay resort on the Las Vegas Strip.

The “certification of live birth” posted online and widely touted as “Obama’s birth certificate” does not in any way prove he was born in Hawaii, since the same “short-form” document is easily obtainable for children not born in Hawaii. The true “long-form” birth certificate – which includes information such as the name of the birth hospital and attending physician – is the only document that can prove Obama was born in Hawaii, but to date he has not permitted its release for public or press scrutiny.

Oddly, though congressional hearings were held to determine whether Sen. John McCain was constitutionally eligible to be president as a “natural born citizen,” no controlling legal authority ever sought to verify Obama’s claim to a Hawaiian birth.